Chapter 32
32
STEVIE
Stevie was standing at the bar, lost in a world of her own when Ollie came over from their table. He had a baseball cap on his head, and fake glasses on his unshaven face, but his deliberate disguise hadn’t fooled everyone. So far tonight he’d had at least six requests for selfies, four for old school autographs, and a marriage proposal.
Thankfully, the adoration of his fan club had died down in the last hour or so, because the bar had become so busy he was able to fade into the background.
The strange thing was, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the more time she spent with him, the more she forgot that he was famous. He made her laugh, and he had such a caring, easy way about him, such a genuine openness, that all the actor-y superficial stuff seemed irrelevant.
He stood next to her at the counter and nudged her shoulder. ‘Everything okay or are you getting ready to flee the scene?’
‘I’ll warn you if I’m about to do a runner. Depends on the size of the bill. But yes, I’m fine, thanks. The waiters were busy, so I just decided to come for the drinks myself.’
He didn’t seem to be buying that. ‘That’s all?’
She wasn’t getting away with it. ‘Well, maybe I wanted to clear my head a little. Every time I think we’re on smooth emotional sailing, someone comes along and torpedoes the boat. Watching the video of my mum… I can’t get that image of her out of my head. She was so different. They all were.’ She shook off the melancholy. ‘But I think your mum and Carina needed to see it too. Carina has been like a different person since she came back from meeting that husband of hers.’ She glanced back over at Carina and Moira. ‘How’s your mum doing?’
Ollie followed her gaze. ‘Okay, I think. But then, if she wasn’t, we’d never know. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not afraid to vent her thoughts when she’s pissed off about something, and she’ll go to war with anyone who crosses her or hurts someone she loves, but when it comes to her own life…’ He smiled back in Moira’s direction, ‘well, she’s one of those people who does what she needs to do and just gets on with it.’
‘I can see that in her. She’s been right there for me and Carina this week.’
Back over at the table, the two women were deep in conversation now, heads together, and Stevie saw a lightness to Carina’s face that she hadn’t seen all week.
‘I’m so glad that Carina didn’t go back to her husband. Not that I’m judgemental, and this is based on never meeting him and only anecdotal evidence, but I can’t stand him and she’s way too good for him.’
That made Ollie chuckle. ‘You’re sounding like my mum. I’ve heard her offer to bury his body at least twice in the last couple of days.’
The barman was back, and he slid the first two drinks from her order across the bar top. Two margaritas for the ladies who’d been together now for a week, but still appeared to have engrossing stuff to talk about.
‘It’s hard to believe they haven’t seen each other for over thirty years. I keep thinking that it’s such wasted time. And for my mum too. Why didn’t she make an effort to see them? Why couldn’t they all be in each other’s lives? They could have brought so much strength and joy to each other. I know that my mum could have done with friends like that.’
Obviously he didn’t have the answers, but he threw it back to her.
‘Why do you think she kept this life secret?’
‘I think she was scared of opening the door to this world again. She wanted to keep everything controlled, just her and me, no one else in our lives, especially people who knew about her past. I think she was probably embarrassed. Scared of who she’d been. And if she pretended that it hadn’t happened then it couldn’t harm her or me.’
The thing about him being such a good listener was that it made her want to talk more. And it felt so good to just let it all out.
‘I used to think she was just being a nag and stomping all the happiness out of my life. I’m no expert but I wonder now if a lot of her behaviour was a trauma response. So much loss. Her mum. Her gran. The baby. And no other love to get her through those things. That definitely changed her.’
‘In what way?’ he asked, encouraging her to go on.
‘Look how different she was from the stories we’ve heard about her here. When I was growing up, she was nothing like that. She’d stopped drinking, stopped smoking, stopped going out, stopped being who she was. Watching that video earlier was one of the highlights of my life, but it makes me sad to see that she was so free and she had so much talent. Yet, to me, she spent her whole life terrified. She refused to give me any freedom or allow me to make mistakes. That girl who’d flown to Hong Kong on her own when she was barely out of her teens, became a woman who refused to take chances and she wouldn’t let me take them either. That’s how I ended up doing the job I’m doing now. It was a safe move. It’s a great job, but I just don’t know if I’d had free rein to pick that I’d have done the same thing.’
The barman slid their other two drinks over to them, but Stevie wasn’t ready to go back to the table yet, too happy to be talking this through with him. At home, everything was discussed with Caleb and Keli and she got her maternal fix from Gilda, who cared for her in a way that made her feel that whatever choices she made, good or bad, she’d be supported. That was all she’d ever wanted from her mother. She understood now that Lisa was too scarred and too scared to let that happen.
‘What else would you have done if you hadn’t chosen your line of work?’ Ollie asked.
She took a deep breath. This was it. Time to put it out there. Let it go.
‘I think I terrified her when I was a little girl because I wanted to sing. I had no idea that she’d been a singer – I just loved it and wanted to perform. She shut that down so quickly. Wouldn’t allow it, even when I begged. Again, I can see now that she was just petrified that history would repeat itself.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to relate, because my mum pushed me to do whatever I wanted to do. But I’m so sorry that happened to you.’
‘Thank you.’
Around her, she heard the track that three gents were murdering on the karaoke come to an end.
‘The thing is,’ she went on, ‘I think I’m over not taking chances.’
The karaoke host took to the stage.
‘Thank you, gents,’ he crooned. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for our next singer… Miss Stevie Dixon.’
Ollie’s eyes widened, but they didn’t leave hers. ‘Really?’ he asked, grinning.
‘Really,’ she said. ‘So I’m going to start taking them now,’ she told him, unable to contain a high that didn’t come from her drinks. She was about to step away, when she stopped, leant towards him, and kissed him on the lips until she could barely breathe. And she felt a jolt of happiness when she realised he was kissing her back.
‘I won’t be long,’ she murmured. ‘Then I’m going to do that again.’
She felt his eyes on her back as she walked to the stage, and she saw Moira and Carina jump to their feet as she passed them, now watching her, cheering her on.
When she took the mic she didn’t even have to look at the words on the screen because she knew them off by heart.
And as the opening bars of ‘Landslide’, by Stevie Nicks, began, she closed her eyes. And she sang. She sang for herself. For the two women she’d met only a week ago. For the guy she’d just snogged at the bar. And she sang for her mum.
And when she let go of the last note, she opened her eyes and Moira and Carina were on their feet again… and so was every other person in the bar.
The noise brought her back to earth, broke the spell, and she blushed furiously as she walked back to her seat, into Moira’s waiting arms.
‘I wish my mum could have been here to see that tonight.’
Moira held her tight as she whispered in her ear.
‘Stevie, I’ve never been more sure that your mum was right here the whole time.’